He tapped his nose. “I know. Lucky for you, they’re not particularly popular, or I’d have sent someone after them years ago.” He shook his head. “Portland,” he scoffed. “I suppose it’s changed you forever, huh? Living with all those West Coasters, off having juice cleanses and getting your nipples pierced.”
“Vern!”
“What? I watch the news. Bunch of lunatics, if you ask me. You should’ve never left home; you have everything you need right here.” He tapped the book in my hand. “I’ll bet you no goddamn bookstores out there have all three copies ofWillowson’s Foil. We’ve even got the Greek edition.”
“I missed you, too.”
“I suppose you’re back for that nasty business with the girls.” He shook his head. “Dani was a sweet girl, used to study in the west corner. Checked out nearly all the astronomy books at one point or another. Very bright. Didn’t know the other girl; dreadful sorry about what happened to her. Her poor parents.”
“Sad all around,” I agreed.
“So they called you in to help? I thought I wouldn’t see you back here in my lifetime, with the way you split out of town. And with Max and all …”
I grimaced. “I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the opportunity. Well, not with Max, anyway. But we’re … making it work.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“We haven’t bitten each other’s heads off yet,” I admitted. “It’s really good to see you.”
I rubbed a hand down the walnut shelves. There was so much of me here. I was surprised to find a book I’d tucked into my own little hiding place near a crevice in the wall. I smiled, leafing through its yellow pages. The note from Max was still stuck to the front.
Thought you might like this–M
After we learned we were dimidiums, Max and I spent nearly all our waking time together, practicing, studying, learning how we cast together, how we worked apart. Whenever we were forced to break for classes, I’d return to find that Max had left books outside my room with bookmarked pages or notes on the cover. Sometimes he’d ink little notes in the margins that Vern would have a fit about and that I’d have to use an illusion charm on to erase. Sometimes, though, I’d cast the countercharm, just to read them again.
Notes like:Lmk what you think. You know what, scratch that. You’re probably on your way here to tell me as we speak.
Or:Easy, killer. I know you hate this theory, but you hated me too, at first. And look how I’ve grown on you;)I could picture him chuckling to himself as he penned them.
But as we grew closer, I started to get scared. I could barely take it when he came over, with that sweet, earnest smile on his face, a new book in hand or some new theory he wanted my opinion on. And I could take it even less when his sad blue eyes dropped to the ground after I made up an excuse.
But I knew guys like him. Knew that I could never mean half as much to him as he meant to me. Knew I couldn’t get attached because of how vulnerable, how miserable it would make him to know every ooey-gooey way I was falling for him, every time my heart swooped at those little notes, how my pulse quickened when I saw him coming toward me, how even now I still had every one of those stickies tucked away in a box under my bed. How embarrassing, how utterly exposed being a dimidium left me.
So I started to pull away. Started making excuses why I couldn’t study with him, why I couldn’t meet up.
But, of course, Max, being who he was, would never let it die a slow, natural death.
He stopped me one day, brow furrowed. “Did I … do something?” For once, uber-confident Max was unsure of himself.
And, for a second, that look of vulnerability made me nearly take back everything. I almost told him how crazy I was about him right then and there.
His throat bobbed. “I understand if there’s someone else—”
“There’s no one else,” I blurted, and almost laughed.Someone else?How could he possibly think that he wasn’t good enough for me?
“Oh, good.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Then what is it?”
And oh God, how many times have I regretted the stupid shit I said that day. “We’re breaking ground in this new science, right? We’re practitioners. The Magic is everything. We shouldn’t muddy up our alliance with emotion. I’m sure you agree.”
His smile dropped. “Oh. If that’s … what you want.”
“It is,” I said. And though I spent the next I don’t know how many hours regretting that statement, there was still truth in it. It wasn’t his fault, of course. He wasn’t even aware of it—of how he swallowed all the light, how anyone next to him fell into his shadow. Everyone loved Max; it was just who he was. He smiled, and the world unfurled for him.
But I knew that if we were in a relationship, that was all I would ever be. To him, to anyone else. I’d be dependent on him, just the little dog running after his heels. And I hadn’t worked as hard as I had for my male colleagues to consider me Max’s flavor of the month. I wanted to be whole, to stand on my own two feet, to not sink into the inescapable void that was Max Middlemore’s shadow. Falling in love with him meant letting go of that tight grip of control that kept me grounded, the tether I’d relied on my entire life. I was logical, I was an academic. Love was uncharted territory. Love was something that could harm me.
And I’d worked too hard and built too many protections around myself to let that happen.
Vern snapped a heavy tome shut, jerking me back to the present. “So, whatcha need?”
